We are currently undergoing updates to our site and are working to improve your experience on all devices that you use throughout your day. If you should find a page or a story that is not working correctly, please click here.

Thank you for your patience,

TribLIVE.com Team

Planning commission member Carol Shields has stepped down after three decades of service to the township.

Commissioners accepted her resignation and approved Edward “Chips” Pearson to fill the vacant position through Jan. 1, 2017.

In a letter, Shields wrote that it had been “a privilege and a pleasure” to serve. Assisting with Shaler's recent upgrade of its code book topped her years of volunteering, she said. Proposed ordinances changes are now under review by commissioners.

“I'd been on (the planning commission) for 30 years, and I felt after the completion of the ordinances I felt I came full circle,” Shields said

Pearson took his seat on Jan. 22. He is a longtime Shaler resident, a volunteer at Elfinwild Volunteer Fire Company and coached sports in the township when his children played.

Fox Chapel

Property tax rate awaits reassessments

Council last week approved its 2013 budget but residents will have to wait for it to set the property tax rate until all reassessment appeals are settled, borough Manager Gary Koehler said.

The budget totals $8.8 million. If the tax rate remains steady at the 2013 rate of 2.4 mills, the owner of a home assessed at $200,000 will again pay $480 in property taxes. Officials expect the rate to remain close to that of 2012, with any increase approved only to cover the cost of appeals.

In other business, council approved a $5,000 donation to Volunteers of America of PA's All of Us Care, a Sharpsburg-based organization that assists with employment and after-school activities.

Indiana Township

Route 910 to be closed through October

Major changes are in store for motorists who travel through Indiana Township.

A section of the township's most heavily used road, Route 910, will close at 7 a.m. Feb. 11 and remain off-limits to traffic through October.

The shutdown affects the portion of 910 that passes over the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

The work is necessary to accommodate a $200 million turnpike expansion.

“We received notice that Route 910 will close just west of the Indianola refinery, up from Blue Run Road,” Indiana Township manager Dan Anderson said. “We anticipate that to last until fall.”

You are solely responsible for your comments and by using TribLive.com you agree to our
Terms of Service.

We moderate comments. Our goal is to provide substantive commentary for a general readership. By screening submissions, we provide a space where readers can share intelligent and informed commentary that enhances the quality of our news and information.

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderating decisions are subjective. We will make them as carefully and consistently as we can. Because of the volume of reader comments, we cannot review individual moderation decisions with readers.

We value thoughtful comments representing a range of views that make their point quickly and politely. We make an effort to protect discussions from repeated comments either by the same reader or different readers

We follow the same standards for taste as the daily newspaper. A few things we won't tolerate: personal attacks, obscenity, vulgarity, profanity (including expletives and letters followed by dashes), commercial promotion, impersonations, incoherence, proselytizing and SHOUTING. Don't include URLs to Web sites.

We do not edit comments. They are either approved or deleted. We reserve the right to edit a comment that is quoted or excerpted in an article. In this case, we may fix spelling and punctuation.

We welcome strong opinions and criticism of our work, but we don't want comments to become bogged down with discussions of our policies and we will moderate accordingly.

We appreciate it when readers and people quoted in articles or blog posts point out errors of fact or emphasis and will investigate all assertions. But these suggestions should be sent
via e-mail. To avoid distracting other readers, we won't publish comments that suggest a correction. Instead, corrections will be made in a blog post or in an article.